THROUGHOUT that entire season the
old Squire was much interested in a project for making a fortune from the sale
of spring water. The water of the celebrated Poland Spring, twenty miles from
our place — where the Poland Spring Hotel now stands — was already enjoying an
enviable popularity; and up in our north pasture on the side of Nubble Hill,
there was, and still is, a fine spring, the water of which did not differ in
analysis from that of the Poland Spring. It is the "boiling" type of
spring, and the water, which is stone-cold, bubbles up through white quartzose
sand at the foot of a low granite ledge. It flows throughout the year at the
rate of about eight gallons a minute.

It had always been called the Nubble
Spring, but when the old Squire and Addison made their plans for selling the
spring water they rechristened it the Rose-Quartz Spring on account of an
outcrop of rose quartz in the ledges near by.

They had the water analyzed by a
chemist in Boston, who pronounced it as pure as Poland water, and, indeed, so
like it that he could detect no difference. All of us were soon enthusiastic
about the project.

First we set to work to make the
spring more attractive. We cleared up the site and formed a granite basin for
the water, sheltered by a little kiosk with seats where visitors could sit as
they drank. We also cleared up the slope round it and set out borders of young
pine and balm-of-Gilead trees.

We sent samples of the water in
bottles and kegs to dealers in spring waters, along with a descriptive circular
— which Addison composed — and the statement of analysis. Addison embellished
the circular with several pictures of the spring and its surroundings, and
cited medical opinions on the value of pure waters of this class. We also
invited our neighbors and fellow townsmen to come and drink at our spring.

Very soon orders began to come in.
The name itself, the Rose-Quartz Spring, was fortunate, for it conveyed a
suggestion of crystal purity; that with the analysis induced numbers of people
in the great cities, especially in Chicago, to try it.

Less was known in 1868 than now of
the precautions that it is necessary to take in sending spring water to distant
places, in order to insure its keeping pure. Little was known of microbes or
antisepsis.

The old Squire and Addison decided
that they would have to send the water to their customers in kegs of various
sizes and in barrels; but as kegs made of oak staves, or of spruce, would
impart a woody taste to the water, they hit upon the expedient of making the
staves' of sugar-maple wood. The old Squire had a great quantity of staves
sawed at his hardwood flooring mill, and at the cooper shop had them made into
kegs and barrels of all sizes from five gallons' capacity up to fifty gallons'.
After the kegs were set up we filled them with water and allowed them to soak
for a week to take out all taste of the wood before we filled them from the
spring and sent them away.

We believed that that precaution was
sufficient, but now it is known that spring water can be kept safe only by
putting it in glass bottles and glass carboys. No water will keep sweet in
barrels for any great length of time, particularly when exported to hot
climates.

The spring was nearly a mile from
the farmhouse; and at a little distance below it we built a shed and set up a
large kettle for boiling water to scald out the kegs and barrels that came back
from customers and dealers to be refilled. We were careful not only to rinse
them but also to soak them before we cleaned them with scalding water. As the
business of sending off the water grew, the old Squire kept a hired man at the
spring and the shed to look after the kegs and to draw the water. His name was
James Doane. He had been, with the old Squire six years and as a rule was a
trustworthy man and a good worker. He had one failing: occasionally, although
not very often, he would get drunk.

So firm was the old Squire's faith
in the water that we drew a supply of it to the house every second morning.
Addison fitted up a little "water room" in the farmhouse L, and we
kept water there in large bottles, cooled, for drinking. The water seemed to do
us good, for we were all unusually healthy that summer. "Here's the true
elixir of health," the old Squire often said as he drew a glass of it and
sat down in the pleasant, cool "water room" to enjoy it.

Addison and he had fixed the price
of the water at twenty-five cents a gallon, although we made our neighbors and
fellow townsmen welcome to all they cared to come and get. We first advertised
the water in June, and sales increased slowly throughout the summer and fall. Apparently
the water gave good satisfaction, for the kegs came back to be refilled. By the
following May the success of the venture seemed assured. Those who were using
the water spoke well of it, and the demand was growing. In April we received
orders for more than nine hundred gallons, and in May for more than thirteen
hundred gallons.

The old Squire was very happy over
the success of the enterprise. "It's a fine, clean business," he
said. "That water has done us good, and it will do others good; and if they
drink that, they will drink less whiskey."

Addison spent the evenings in making
out bills and attending to the correspondence; for there were other matters
that had to be attended to besides the Rose-Quartz Spring. Besides the farm
work we had to look after the hardwood flooring mill that summer and the
white-birch dowel mill. For several days toward the end of June we did not even
have time to go up to the spring for our usual supply of water. But we kept Jim
Doane there under instructions to attend carefully to the putting up of the
water. It was his sole business, and he seemed to be attending to it properly.
He was at the spring every day and boarded at the house of a neighbor, named
Murch, who lived nearer to Nubble Hill than we did. Every day, too, we noticed
the smoke of the fire under the kettle in which he heated water for scalding
out the casks.

The first hint we had that things
were going wrong was when Willis Murch told Addison that Doane had been on a
spree, and that for several days he had been so badly under the influence of
liquor that he did not know what he was about.

On hearing that news Addison and the
old Squire hastened to the spring. Jim was there, sober enough now, and working
industriously. But he looked bad, and his account of how he had done his work
for the last week was far from clear. The old Squire gave him another job at
the dowel mill and stationed his brother, Asa Doane, a strictly temperate man,
at the spring. We could not learn just what had happened during the past ten
days, but we hoped that no serious neglect had occurred.

But there had.

Toward the middle of July a letter
of complaint came — the first we had ever received. "This barrel of water
from your spring is not keeping good," were the exact words of it. I remember
them well, for we read them over and over again. Addison replied at once, and
sent another barrel in its place.

Before another week had passed a
second complaint came. "This last barrel of water from your spring is
turning 'ropy,'" it said. Another customer sent his barrel back when half
full, with a letter saying, "It isn't fit to drink. The barrel is slimy
inside."

Addison examined the barrel
carefully, and found that there was, indeed, an appreciable film of vegetable
growth on the staves inside. The taste of the water also was quite different.

Within a fortnight four more barrels
and kegs were returned to us, in at least two cases accompanied by sharp words
of condemnation. "No better than pond water," one customer wrote.

We carefully examined the inside of
all these barrels and kegs as soon as they came back. Besides invisible
impurities in the water, there was in every one more or less visible dirt, even
bits of grass and slivers of wood.

There was only one conclusion to
reach: Jim Doane had not been careful in filling the kegs and had not properly
cleansed and scalded them. As nearly as we could discover from bits of
information that came out subsequently, there were days and days when he was
too "hazy" to know whether he had cleansed the barrels or not. He had
filled them and sent them off in foul condition.

Addison wrote more than fifty
letters to customers, defending the purity of Rose-Quartz Spring water,
relating the facts of this recent "accident" and asking for a
continued trial of it. I suppose that people at a distance thought that if
there had been carelessness once there might be again. Very likely, too, they
suspected that the water had never been so pure as we had declared it to be.
Owners of other springs who had put water on the market improved the
opportunity to circulate reports that Rose-Quartz water would not
"keep." We got possession of three circulars in which that damaging
statement had been sent broadcast.

There is probably no commodity in
the world that depends so much on a reputation for purity as spring water. By
September the orders for water had fallen off to a most disheartening extent.
Scarcely three hundred gallons were called for.

In the hope that this was merely a
temporary setback, and knowing that there was no fault in the water itself, the
old Squire spent a thousand dollars in advertisements to stem the tide of
adverse criticism. So far as we could discover, the effort produced little or
no effect on sales. The opinion had gone abroad that the water would not keep
pure for any great length of time. By the following spring sales had dwindled
to such an extent that it was hardly worth while to continue the business.
Considered as a commercial asset, the Rose-Quartz Spring was dead.

Regretfully we gave up the enterprise
and let the spring fall into disuse. It was then, I remember, that the old
Squire said, "It takes us one lifetime to learn how to do things."